Lexus partners with will.i.am for NX Striking Angles campaign

Lexus and Grammy Award-winner will.i.am have entered into a partnership in which the musician will champion provocative design and technology as part of the carmaker’s Striking Angles campaign to introduce the new Lexus NX. As part of the campaign, will.i.am is to design his own version of the NX, the carmaker’s latest offering in the premium mid-size SUV market.

The musician will also appear in a TV commercial made for the NX. According to will.i.am, whatever he does, he wants it to be striking. He said that his collaboration with Lexus on the Striking Angles campaign is no different, as they were able to work together on a multi-faceted campaign expected to defy design conventions and help fuel people’s imaginations.”

Lexus will release a short collaboration film featuring will.i.am to kick off the partnership. The short collaboration film will feature will.i.am’s track Dreaming About the Future, first heard as part of will.i.am’s Pyramidi installation in the Barbican’s Digital Revolution exhibition in London.

Dreaming About the Future, which also features Brazilian musician Sergio Mendes, will be the focus of the Lexus-sponsored installation, underlining a combination of digital and analogue music technologies and projection-mapped visuals.

The short collaboration film will also feature animated graphics as inspired by will.i.am and Lexus’ passion for angular and striking design. Alain Uyttenhoven, Head of Lexus Europe, remarked that will.i.am’s passion for design and innovation as well as his creativity, makes him musician the ideal partner for the Lexus NX Striking Angles campaign.

The Lexus NX and will.i.am are the stars of Striking Angles, a television commercial for the new luxury crossover that has its premiere in Europe tonight and will break in the UK in October. Using rich visuals and a soundtrack featuring an exclusive remix of will.i.am's Dreamin' About the Future, the ad transports viewers into an imagined modern world of angular design.

It depicts the NX travelling through a futuristic cityscape, giving hints of the car's progressive design as it passes beneath stylised road signs and through multi-faceted tunnels. As the journey unfolds, will.i.am appears on angled TV screens in a shop window before emerging in person from a facet-fronted club, stopping in his tracks to admire the passing Lexus.

Speaking about the ad, will.i.am said: "As a musician and an entrepreneur, I want my ideas and my presence to impact on the world around me. The team at Lexus applied the same vision to the ad – showing how the NX impacts the design of the world around it."

Alain Uyttenhoven, Head of Lexus Europe, said: "We wanted to bring our design philosophy for the Lexus NX to the forefront, transporting consumers to a world built entirely on revolutionary and striking design. It's an attitude that we apply to everything we do at Lexus, from the design of the car to the innovative technology within. Will.i.am perfectly complements the world that we created, fusing our joint passions for progressive design and technology."

As part of the NX Striking Angles campaign, Lexus has created a one-off model, designed by will.i.am. The highly stylised car will be unveiled in Paris on 24 September during Paris Fashion Week.